On Tue, Mar 18, 2003 at 10:34:35AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Huh? It seems meaningless to me: if you employ some people to work on
> your program, you put them under NDA so that they agree not to disclose
> the source code; if you work with other groups, you do likewise to them.
The license would forbid this, just like the GPL's clause 6 would.
> If necessary, you do the NDAing at arm's length, something like:
>
> A changes the program
> E employs B under a contract that they don't distribute the
> program or its source, etc
> E asks A to give B a copy of the program
> A gives B a copy of the program
This would leave A free to distribute the modifications.
> E isn't covered by the program's license since he never has anything to
> do with it. I don't think it would be remotely reasonable or enforcable
> (or in line with giving people more free software) to somehow stop A from
> giving the program to B, or to stop B from being able to give copies to
> people who E approves of.
If the program were GPLed, it _would_ stop B from being able to give
copies to anyone unless the copies were unrestricted. This doesn't
seem to be a problem in practice, though IIRC it collided with US
export restrictions at some point.
I think the end result of your scenario is that only B is restricted.
Richard Braakman